Daniel McFarland Cook had a mind that never stopped turning, and for the greatest part of his life his thoughts were endlessly trying the secrets of electricity, and relentlessly unlocking sources of energy.

People around here had a hard time taking him seriously, and they branded him ‘Crazy Cook’ before he was 50 years old.  But, as they say, ‘a prophet is never recognized in his own hometown,’ and you have to get farther from home—like Cincinnati, Washington DC, and Great Britain in his time, or on electrical engineers’ chatrooms all over the world in our time—before you find earnest credence given to the man from Mansfield who shared his laboratory with a horse in the 1880s.

And because there are people today who take him seriously—who are still working to solve the problems he addressed 140 years ago—it’s possible that Cook’s career may not yet be finished, and his story not yet completely told.

Read more at RichlandCountyHistory.com